Hearts of Three

Francis pushed against the female deity with his hand and found that she moved easily. Gripping her with both hands, he began to wrestle, moving her with quick jerks and twists.

“For the strong men and unafraid will Chia walk,” the priest read. “But the next three knots declare: Beware! Beware! Beware!”

“Well, I guess, that nothingness, whatever it is, won’t bite me,” Francis chuckled, as he released the statue after shifting it a yard from its original position.

“There, old lady, stand there for a while, or sit down if that will rest your feet. They ought to be tired after standing on nothing for so many centuries.”

A cry from Leoncia drew his gaze to the portion of the floor just vacated by the large feet of Chia. Stepping backward from the displaced goddess, he had been just about to fall into the rock-hewn hole her feet had concealed. It was circular, and a full yard in diameter. In vain he tested the depth by dropping lighted matches. They fell burning, and, without reaching bottom, still falling, were extinguished by the draught of their flight.

“It looks very much like nothingness without a bottom,” he adjudged, as he dropped a tiny stone fragment.

Many seconds they listened ere they heard it strike.

“Even that may not be the bottom,” Leoncia suggested. “It may have been struck against some projection from the side and even lodged there.”

“Well, this will determine it,” Francis cried, seizing an ancient musket from among the bones on the floor and preparing to drop it.

But the old man stopped him.

“The message of the sacred knots is: whoso violates the nothingness beneath the feet of Chia shall quickly and terribly die.”

“Far be it from me to make a stir in the void,” Francis grinned, tossing the musket aside. “But what are we to do now, old Maya man? From the mouth of Chia to the ear of Hzatzl sounds easy – but how? – and what? Run the sacred knots with thy fingers, old top, and find for us how and what.”

For the son of the priest, the peon with the frayed knees, the clock had struck. All unaware, he had seen his last sun-rise. No matter what happened this day, no matter what blind efforts he might make to escape, the day was to be his last day. Had he remained on guard at the cave-entrance, he would surely have been killed by Torres and Mancheno, who had arrived close on his heels.

But, instead of so remaining, it entered his cautious, timid soul to make a scout out and beyond for possible foes. Thus, he missed death in the daylight under the sky. Yet the pace of the hands of the clock was unalterable, and neither nearer nor farther was his destined end from him.

While he scouted, Alvarez Torres and José Mancheno arrived at the cave-opening. The colossal, mother-of-pearl eyes of Chia on the wall of the cliff were too much for the superstition-reared Caroo.

“Do you go in,” he told Torres. “I will wait here and watch and guard.”

And Torres, with strong in him the blood of the ancient forebear who stood faithfully through the centuries in the avenue of the mummy dead, entered the Maya cave as courageously as that forebear had entered.

And the instant he was out of sight, José Mancheno, unafraid to murder treacherously any living, breathing man, but greatly afraid of the unseen world behind unexplainable phenomena, forgot the trust of watch and ward and stole away through the jungle. Thus, the peon, returning reassured from his scout and curious to learn the Maya secrets of his father and of the sacred tassel, found nobody at the cave mouth and himself entered into it close upon the heels of Torres.

The latter trod softly and cautiously, for fear of disclosing his presence to those he trailed. Also his progress was still further delayed by the spectacle of the ancient dead in the hall of mummies. Curiously he examined these men whom history had told about, and for whom history had stopped there in the antechamber of the Maya gods. Especially curious was he at the sight of the mummy at the end of the line. The resemblance to him was too striking for him not to see, and he could not but believe that he was looking upon some direct great-ancestor of his.

Still gazing and speculating, he was warned by approaching foot-steps, and glanced about for some place to hide. A sardonic humor seized him. Taking the helmet from the head of his ancient kin, he placed it on his own head. Likewise did he drape the rotten mantle about his form, and equip himself with the great sword and the great floppy boots that almost fell to pieces as he pulled them on. Next, half tenderly, he deposited the nude mummy on its back in the dark shadows behind the other mummies. And, finally, in the same spot at the end of the line, his hand resting on the sword-hilt, he assumed the same posture he had observed of the mummy.

Only his eyes moved as he observed the peon venturing slowly and fearfully along the avenue of upright corpses. At sight of Torres he came to an abrupt stop and with wide eyes of dread muttered a succession of Maya prayers. Torres, so confronted, could only listen with closed eyes and conjecture. When he heard the peon move on he stole a look and saw him pause with apprehension at the narrow elbow-turn of the passage which he must venture next. Torres saw his chance and swung the sword aloft for the blow that would split the peon’s head in twain.

Though this was the day and the very hour for the peon, the last second had not yet ticked. Not there, in the thoroughfare of the dead, was he destined to die under the hand of Torres. For Torres held his hand and slowly lowered the point of the sword to the floor, while the peon passed on into the elbow.

The latter met up with his father, Leoncia, and Francis, just as Francis was demanding the priest to run the knots again for fuller information of the how and what that would open the ear of Hzatzl.

“Put your hand into the mouth of Chia and draw forth the key,” the old man commanded his reluctant son, who went about obeying him most gingerly.

“She won’t bite you – she’s stone,” Francis laughed at him in Spanish.

“The Maya gods are never stone,” the old man reproved him. “They seem to be stone, but they are alive, and ever alive, and under the stone, and through the stone, and by the stone, as always, work their everlasting will.”

Leoncia shuddered away from him and clung against Francis, her hand on his arm, as if for protection.

“I know that something terrible is going to happen,” she gasped. “I don’t like this place in the heart of a mountain among all these dead old things. I like the blue of the sky and the balm of the sunshine, and the widespreading sea. Something terrible is going to happen. I know that something terrible is going to happen.”

While Francis reassured her, the last seconds of the last minute for the peon were ticking off. And when, summoning all his courage, he thrust his hand into the mouth of the goddess, the last second ticked and the clock struck. With a scream of terror he pulled back his hand and gazed at the wrist where a tiny drop of blood exuded directly above an artery. The mottled head of a snake thrust forth like a mocking, derisive tongue and drew back and disappeared in the darkness of the mouth of the goddess.

“A viperine!” screamed Leoncia, recognising the reptile.

And the peon, likewise recognising the viperine and knowing his certain death by it, recoiled backward in horror, stepped into the hole, and vanished down the nothingness which Chia had guarded with her feet for so many centuries.

For a full minute nobody spoke, then the old priest said: “I have angered Chia, and she has slain my son.”

“Nonsense,” Francis was comforting Leoncia. “The whole thing is natural and explainable. What more natural than that a viperine should choose a hole in a rock for a lair? It is the way of snakes. What more natural than that a man, bitten by a viperine, should step backward? And what more natural, with a hole behind him, than that he should fall into it – ”

“That is then just natural!” she cried, pointing to a stream of crystal water which boiled up over the lips of the hole and fountained up in the air like a geyser. “He is right. Through stone itself the gods work their everlasting will. He warned us. He knew from reading the knots of the sacred tassel.”

“Piffle!” Francis snorted. “Not the will of the gods, but of the ancient Maya priests who invented their gods as well as this particular device. Somewhere down that hole the peon’s body struck the lever that opened stone flood-gates. And thus was released some subterranean body of water in the mountain. This is that water. No goddess with a monstrous mouth like that could ever have existed save in the monstrous imaginations of men. Beauty and divinity are one. A real and true goddess is always beautiful. Only man creates devils in all their ugliness.”

So large was the stream that already the water was about their ankles.

“It’s all right,” Francis said. “I noticed, all the way from the entrance, the steady inclined plane of the floors of the rooms and passages. Those old Mayas were engineers, and they built with an eye on drainage. See how the water rushes away out through the passage. – Well, old man, read your knots, where is the treasure?”

“Where is my son?” the old man counter-demanded in dull and hopeless tones. “Chia has slain my only born. For his mother I broke the Maya law and stained the pure Maya blood with the mongrel blood of a woman of the tierra caliente. Because I sinned for him that he might be, is he thrice precious to me. What care I for treasure? My son is gone. The wrath of the Maya gods is upon me.”

With gurglings and burblings and explosive air-bubblings that advertised the pressure behind, the water fountained high as ever into the air. Leoncia was the first to notice the rising depth of the water on the chamber floor.

“It is half way to my knees,” she drew Francis’ attention.

“And time to get out,” he agreed, grasping the situation. “The drainage was excellently planned, perhaps. But that slide of rocks at the cliff entrance has evidently blocked the planned way of the water. In the other passages, being lower, the water is deeper, of course, than here. Yet is it already rising here on the general level. And that way lies the only way out. Come!”

Thrusting Leoncia to lead in the place of safety, he caught the apathetic priest by the hand and dragged him after. At the entrance of the elbow turn the water was boiling above their knees. It was to their waists as they emerged into the chamber of mummies.

And out of the water, confronting Leoncia’s astounded gaze, arose the helmeted head and ancient-mantled body of a mummy. Not this alone would have astounded her, for other mummies were over-toppling, falling and being washed about in the swirling waters. But this mummy moved and made gasping noises for breath, and with eyes of life stared into her eyes.

It was too much for ordinary human nature to bear – a four-centuries old corpse dying the second death by drowning. Leoncia screamed, sprang forward, and fled the way she had come, while Francis, in his own way equally startled, let her go past as he drew his automatic pistol. But the mummy, finding footing in the swift rush of the current, cried out:

“Don’t shoot! It is I – Torres! I have just come back from the entrance. Something has happened. The way is blocked. The water is over one’s head and higher than the entrance, and rocks are falling.”

“And your way is blocked in this direction,” Francis said, aiming the revolver at him.

“This is no time for quarreling,” Torres replied. “We must save all our lives, and, afterwards, if quarrel we must, then quarrel we will.”

Francis hesitated.

“What is happening to Leoncia?” Torres demanded slyly. “I saw her run back. May she not be in danger by herself?”

Letting Torres live and dragging the old man by the arm, Francis waded back to the chamber of the idols, followed by Torres. Here, at sight of him, Leoncia screamed her horror again.

“It’s only Torres,” Francis reassured her. “He gave me a devil of a fright myself when I first saw him. But he’s real flesh. He’ll bleed if a knife is stuck into him. – Come, old man! We don’t want to drown here like rats in a trap. This is not all of the Maya mysteries. Read the tale of the knots and get us out of this!”

“The way is not out but in,” the priest quavered.

“And we’re not particular so long as we get away. But how can we get in?”

“From the mouth of Chia to the ear of Hzatzl,” was the answer.

Francis was struck by a sudden grotesque and terrible thought.

“Torres,” he said, “there is a key or something inside that stone lady’s mouth there. You’re the nearest. Stick your hand in and get it.”

Leoncia gasped with horror as she divined Francis’ vengeance. Of this Torres took no notice, and gaily waded toward the goddess, saying: “Only too glad to be of service.”

And then Francis’ sense of fair play betrayed him.

“Stop!” he commanded harshly, himself wading to the idol’s side.

And Torres, at first looking on in puzzlement, saw what he had escaped. Several times Francis fired his pistol into the stone mouth, while the old priest moaned “Sacrilege!” Next, wrapping his coat around his arm and hand, he groped into the mouth and pulled out the wounded viper by the tail. With quick swings in the air he beat its head to a jelly against the goddess’ side.

Wrapping his hand and arm against the possibility of a second snake, Francis thrust his hand into the mouth and drew forth a piece of worked gold of the shape and size of the hole in Hzatzl’s ear. The old man pointed to the ear, and Francis inserted the key.

“Like a nickle-in-the-slot machine,” he remarked, as the key disappeared from sight. “Now what’s going to happen? Let’s watch for the water to drain suddenly away.”

But the great stream continued to spout unabated out of the hole. With an exclamation, Torres pointed to the wall, an apparently solid portion of which was slowly rising.

“The way out,” said Torres.

“In, as the old man said,” Francis corrected. “Well, anyway, let’s start.”

All were through and well along the narrow passage beyond, when the old Maya, crying, “My son!” turned and ran back.

The section of wall was already descending into its original place, and the priest had to crouch low in order to pass it. A moment later, it stopped in its old position. So accurately was it contrived and fitted that it immediately shut off the stream of water which had been flowing out of the idol room.

Outside, save for a small river of water that flowed out of the base of the cliff, there were no signs of what was vexing the interior of the mountain. Henry and Ricardo, arriving, noted the stream, and Henry observed:

“That’s something new. There wasn’t any stream of water here when I left.”

A minute later he was saying, as he looked at a fresh slide of rock: “This was the entrance to the cave. Now there is no entrance. I wonder where the others are.”

As if in answer, out of the mountain, borne by the spouting stream, shot the body of a man. Henry and Ricardo pounced upon it and dragged it clear. Recognizing it for the priest, Henry laid him face downward, squatted astride of him, and proceeded to give him the first aid for the drowned.

Not for ten minutes did the old man betray signs of life, and not until after another ten minutes did he open his eyes and look wildly about.

“Where are they?” Henry asked.

The old priest muttered in Maya, until Henry shook more thorough consciousness into him.

“Gone – all gone,” he gasped in Spanish.

“Who?” Henry demanded, shook memory into the resuscitated one, and demanded again.

“My son; Chia slew him. Chia slew my son, as she slew them all.”

“Who are the rest?”

Followed more shakings and repetitions of the question.

“The rich young Gringo who befriended my son, the enemy of the rich young Gringo whom men call Torres, and the young woman of the Solanos who was the cause of all that happened. I warned you. She should not have come. Women are always a curse in the affairs of men. By her presence, Chia, who is likewise a woman, was made angry. The tongue of Chia is a viperine. By her tongue Chia struck and slew my son, and the mountain vomited the ocean upon us there in the heart of the mountain, and all are dead, slain by Chia. Woe is me! I have angered the gods. Woe is me! Woe is me! And woe upon all who would seek the sacred treasure to filch it from the gods of Maya!”

CHAPTER XVI

Midway between the out-bursting stream of water and the rock-slide, Henry and Ricardo stood in hurried debate. Beside them, crouched on the ground, moaned and prayed the last priest of the Mayas. From him, by numerous shakings that served to clear his addled old head, Henry had managed to extract a rather vague account of what had occurred inside the mountain.

“Only his son was bitten and fell into that hole,” Henry reasoned hopefully.

“That’s right,” Ricardo concurred. “He never saw any damage, beyond a wetting, happen to the rest of them.”

“And they may be, right now, high up above the floor in some chamber,” Henry went on. “Now, if we could attack the slide, we might open up the cave and drain the water off. If they’re alive they can last for many days, for lack of water is what kills quickly, and they’ve certainly more water than they know what to do with. They can get along without food for a long time. But what gets me is how Torres got inside with them.”

“Wonder if he wasn’t responsible for that attack of the Caroos upon us,” Ricardo suggested.

But Henry scouted the idea.

“Anyway,” he said, “that isn’t the present proposition – which proposition is: how to get inside that mountain on the chance that they are still alive. You and I couldn’t go through that slide in a month. If we could get fifty men to help, night and day shifts, we might open her up in forty-eight hours. So, the primary thing is to get the men. Here’s what we must do. I’ll take a mule and beat it back to that Caroo community and promise them the contents of one of Francis’ check-books if they will come and help. Failing that, I can get up a crowd in San Antonio. So here’s where I pull out on the run. In the meantime, you can work out trails and bring up all the mules, peons, grub and camp equipment. Also, keep your ears to the cliff – they might start signalling through it with tappings.”

Into the village of the Caroos Henry forced his mule – much to the reluctance of the mule, and equally as much to the astonishment of the Caroos, who thus saw their stronghold invaded single-handed by one of the party they had attempted to annihilate. They squatted about their doors and loafed in the sunshine, under a show of lethargy hiding the astonishment that tingled through them and almost put them on their toes. As has been ever the way, the very daring of the white man, over savage and mongrel breeds, in this instance stunned the Caroos to inaction. Only a man, they could not help but reason in their slow way, a superior man, a noble or over-riding man, equipped with potencies beyond their dreaming, could dare to ride into their strength of numbers on a fagged and mutinous mule.

They spoke a mongrel Spanish which he could understand, and, in turn, they understood his Spanish; but what he told them concerning the disaster in the sacred mountain had no effect of rousing them. With impassive faces, shrugging shoulders of utmost indifference, they listened to his proposition of a rescue and promise of high pay for their time.

“If a mountain has swallowed up the Gringos, then is it the will of God, and who are we to interfere between God and His will?” they replied. “We are poor men, but we care not to work for any man, nor do we care to make war upon God. Also, it was the Gringos’ fault. This is not their country. They have no right here playing pranks on our mountains. Their troubles are between them and God. We have troubles enough of our own, and our wives are unruly.”

Long after the siesta hour, on his third and most reluctant mule, Henry rode into sleepy San Antonio. In the main street, midway between the court and the jail, he pulled up at sight of the Jefe Politico and the little fat old judge, with, at their heels, a dozen gendarmes and a couple of wretched prisoners – runaway peons from the henequen plantations at Santos. While the judge and the Jefe listened to Henry’s tale and appeal for help, the Jefe gave one slow wink to the judge, who was his judge, his creature, body and soul of him.

“Yes, certainly we will help you,” the Jefe said at the end, stretching his arms and yawning.

“How soon can we get the men together and start?” Henry demanded eagerly.

“As for that, we are very busy – are we not, honorable judge?” the Jefe replied with lazy insolence.

“We are very busy,” the judge yawned into Henry’s face.

“Too busy for a time,” the Jefe went on. “We regret that not to-morrow nor next day shall we be able to try and rescue your Gringos. Now, a little later – ”

“Say next Christmas,” the judge suggested.

“Yes,” concurred the Jefe with a grateful bow. “About next Christmas come around and see us, and, if the pressure of our affairs has somewhat eased, then, maybe possibly, we shall find it convenient to go about beginning to attempt to raise the expedition you have requested. In the meantime, good day to you, Senor Morgan.”

“You mean that?” Henry demanded with wrathful face.

“The very face he must have worn when he slew Senor Alfaro Solano treacherously from the back,” the Jefe soliloquized ominously.

But Henry ignored the later insult.

“I’ll tell you what you are,” he flamed in righteous wrath.

“Beware!” the judge cautioned him.

“I snap my fingers at you,” Henry retorted. “You have no power over me. I am a full-pardoned man by the President of Panama himself. And this is what you are. You are half-breeds. You are mongrel pigs.”

“Pray proceed, Senor,” said the Jefe, with the suave politeness of deathly rage.

“You’ve neither the virtues of the Spaniard nor of the Carib, but the vices of both thrice compounded. Mongrel pigs, that’s what you are and all you are, the pair of you.”

“Are you through Senor? – quite through?” the Jefe queried softly.

At the same moment he gave a signal to the gendarmes, who sprang upon Henry from behind and disarmed him.

“Even the President of the Republic of Panama cannot pardon in anticipation of a crime not yet committed – am I right, judge?” said the Jefe.

“This is a fresh offense,” the judge took the cue promptly. “This Gringo dog has blasphemed against the law.”

“Then shall he be tried, and tried now, right here, immediately. We will not bother to go back and reopen court. We shall try him, and when we have disposed of him, we shall proceed. I have a very good bottle of wine – ”

“I care not for wine,” the judge disclaimed hastily. “Mine shall be mescal. And in the meantime, and now, having been both witness and victim of the offense and there being no need of evidence further than what I already possess, I find the prisoner guilty. Is there anything you would suggest, Senor Mariano Vercara é Hijos?”

“Twenty-four hours in the stocks to cool his heated Gringo head,” the Jefe answered.

“Such is the sentence,” the judge affirmed, “to begin at once. Take the prisoner away, gendarmes, and put him in the stocks.”

Daybreak found Henry in the stocks, with a dozen hours of such imprisonment already behind him, lying on his back asleep. But the sleep was restless, being vexed subjectively by nightmare dreams of his mountain-imprisoned companions, and, objectively, by the stings of countless mosquitoes. So it was, twisting and squirming and striking at the winged pests, he awoke to full consciousness of his predicament. And this awoke the full expression of his profanity. Irritated beyond endurance by the poison from a thousand mosquito-bites, he filled the dawn so largely with his curses as to attract the attention of a man carrying a bag of tools. This was a trim-figured, eagle-faced young man, clad in the military garb of an aviator of the United States Army. He deflected his course so as to come by the stocks, and paused, and listened, and stared with quizzical admiration.

“Friend,” he said, when Henry ceased to catch breath. “Last night, when I found myself marooned here with half my outfit left on board, I did a bit of swearing myself. But it was only a trifle compared with yours. I salute you, sir. You’ve an army teamster skinned a mile. Now if you don’t mind running over the string again, I shall be better equipped the next time I want to do any cussing.”